Saturday, October 16, 2010

Not The Game You Are Looking For.

I adore video games. No news there. What may be surprising is how picky I am about the games I play.

I follow current game news, read trend reports, apply for Alpha's, Beta's and consider myself well informed. The current trend towards browser based games is not new. The "new" part is porting these games to social platforms such as Facebook.

Be prepared for an onslaught of social media, browser games. Raph Koster's Metaplace was recently acquired by Playdom which in turn is now a part of Disney. The developers of these forms of games are very excited. They spout numbers in the billions for player bases. I am sure the numbers are high...minus one. I can't stand these games. They feel like a time warp back to my arcade days. These new games do not compare to the creative, visual, games of old. Perhaps if they were to port Earthworm Jim,(exception iPhone which I will never own..go Android) Starship Titanic or Myst I might hit the play button but I refuse to join anyone's Mafia or farm any ville. I am a game snob.

We have more time wasters. Free to play browser games. Being the Star Wars fan I am, I gave the Lucas Arts/Sony new Clone Wars 15 minutes then I spent 30 minutes making sure no trace of the game remained on my PC. The story is pretty much the same for Sony's Free Realms. *coughs* Ya get what you pay for eh?

I realize a great number of these games are geared towards a young, if not very, very young audience. A good thing for parents. Free. No begging for time cards or mile long lists of 60 buck a pop platform games. (That last statement may be a bit of wishful thinking for parents.)When my kids were just venturing into video games, the worlds were rich, the puzzles clever and the immersion a delight. As a trio, my daughter, son and I nibbled at Myst. (along with a few sequels) The world was lovely, art insanely beautiful. The storyline played like a novel and overall the experience was like candy for the imagination. Games such as Myst inspired creativity outside the game. Can we say the same for current trends? I can not say they inspire imagination IN the game let alone after you walk away.

I am on Facebook. I do "Hide" all posts from social games. I easily refuse all invitations to join teams or play within a social network. I offer the game developers a challenge...change my mind.